


No Darker Place Than A Black Hole

by Leliel12



Category: Persona 5
Genre: (Makoto drops a lot of f-bombs when in the midst of a nervous crackup), Basically "despair" is not a happy ailment, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mind Control, Spoilers for the Pyramid Palace, Status Effects, Suicide Attempt, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 08:16:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11436819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leliel12/pseuds/Leliel12
Summary: The first time the Phantom Thieves encountered the Despair status effect is one that will scar them for life.





	No Darker Place Than A Black Hole

**Author's Note:**

> Kink meme prompt: 
> 
> "Despair's a horrifying status ailment; it only takes a couple turns before the character kills themselves."
> 
> And so, we discover that Futaba's Unhappy Place tends to draw people into it.

"What's she doing?"  
  
The warped, cancerous cognition of Wakaba Isshiki reared back, paws on her cheeks. The Sphinx inhaled, and-  
  
**painagonyyoudeservewhatyougetnothingmeansanythingitsbetterifyoudvanishdespairanddiedespairanddiedespairanddie**  
  
Blinking, Akira shook his head, clearing it of the crazed rant in a scream.   
  
"Futaba," he said out loud, evenly. "Was that what was in your head?"  
  
"...Yeah," replied the hacker, hollowly. "Every last word."  
  
"...When we got out of here, I am having everyone hug you." He looked at his team, expectantly.  
  
Morgana nodded briskly, pupils shrunk to pinpricks.  
  
"I will find as many pleasing images as I can first," Yusuke replied, a hitch to his voice.  
  
Makoto...did nothing.  
  
"Queen? Hey Queen?"  
  
"...no..."  
  
That did not sound like Makoto. Or rather, it did, but a much smaller version of her. Younger.  
  
"...Queen?"  
  
"Gone...all gone..." Johanna flickered into existence for a second, only for a bit of her to...fall off, almost, evaporating into the arid air.  
  
That was their first hint something was horribly wrong.  
  
The second was when Wakaba began to laugh madly. "DO YOU SEE, FUTABA!? SHE UNDERSTANDS NOW! HER FATE IS ON YOUR HANDS ALONE, YOU USELESS WEIGHT!"  
  
Makoto began to stumble back, hands to ears. "No...I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sis...all alone now. I couldn't...I can't..." Johanna flickered again, more of herself dissolving.  
  
A sharp intake of breath came across Futaba's telepathy. "Guys? I'm looking at the flow of energy here-I think the Sphinx  _infected_  Makoto with something! Her Persona's dissolving!"  
  
Akira decided that was probably not a good thing. "Morgana, fan now!" The not-a-cat nodded, bringing out his Status Cure-only for Wakaba to swat him away with her tail.  
  
With that, Makoto seemed to be finally overcome with the deranged Cognition's madness, sinking to the ground. "Useless...useless..."  
  
And then she pulled her gun out, placing it to her temple. "I'm sorry, daddy."  
  
And pulled the trigger.  
  
Everything froze for a second. It only began to resume when the Sphinx began to laugh again, high and cruel. "HAHAHAHAAA! THIS IS WHAT YOU DO FUTABA! YOU BREAK EVERYONE THAT TRIES TO HELP YOU, JUST LIKE YOU BROKE ME! HAHAHAHAHAAAA!"  
  
"...no..." The hacker's telepathic voice was quiet and small, more of an echo than a true voice.  
  
Numbly, Yusuke fingered a Revival Bead, more out of refusal to see the events that had just transpired then-  
  
The bead broke, releasing a great butterfly. Shortlived plants grew around Makoto as the blood retreated back within her and her eyes flew open.  
  
"HAHAHAHA-Haaa...?" Wakaba looked like she was about to drop out of the air.  
  
Makoto slowly turned over, her eyes still watery-but devoid of any other emotion.   
  
"Futaba." Her voice was as dead as her body had been. "Can the arrow hold my weight."  
  
A short flash of green appeared around the ballista. "It does now," Futaba replied, equally coldly.  
  
"Good."  
  
Before the Sphinx (or anyone else) could react, a screaming grey shape flew at the twisted Cognition, and the screams and tearing of eyes using the glass of the apparition's own lenses could be heard throughout the desert.  


* * *

  
  
"Makoto."  
  
The brunette genius, currently curled in a fetal position in her house's shower, barely grunted in acknowledgement.  
  
"Makoto, you haven't taken your clothes off."  
  
She looked down at her soaked vest and skirt. "So I have not."  
  
Ann knocked again, a bit more insistently. "Makoto, you are not at fault here-"  
  
That finally broke the pressure. "And so what!?" She shot up in her stall, nearly slipping from the velocity. "I didn't cast that attack, but I yielded anyway! I've dealt with grief and failure for years, and I  _thought_  I was getting better, but nope, I'm still just the cowardly piece of shit I always was! If the goddamned Revival Bead didn't work on cognitive damage, whoop-de-friggin-do, at least I have a replacement! Actually, why don't you go talk with her, she at least had the  _fucking_  wherewithal to even ask for an ounce of goddamned help rather than die on the pettiest hill there was-actually, just refer to Futaba for all strategy from now on, I quit!"  
  
"You don't mean that."  
  
"YES I DO!" Makoto all but ripped the door hinges off by swinging open her door, eyes streaming. "AS THE CO-LEADER OF THIS TEAM, I AM OFFICIALLY RESIGNING, ON THE BASIS OF BEING A FUCKING COWARD WHO CAN'T DEAL WITH HER OWN PROBLEMS, MUCH LESS ANYONE ELSE'S! I HENCEFORTH CEDE ALL POWERS TO FUTABA SAKURA, THE ONE WHO WAS ABLE TO WORK THROUGH GODDAMNED PARANOID SCHIZOPHRENIA TO UNFUCK HER MIND, WHEN ALL I AM ABLE TO DO IS WALLOW IN MY OWN FUCKING MISERY! I DON'T CARE SHE'S HIBERNATING OR IN SOME KIND OF COMA RIGHT NOW, A FUCKING SNORE IS BETTER THAN ANY IDEA I'D COME UP WITH! AND AS YOUR LAST ORDER FROM YOUR FAILED LEADER, I AM ORDERING YOU TO  **LEAVE! ME! ALONE!** "  
  
Ann, however, was quicker than Makoto. Wincing from the pain of her foot being slammed in the door, before pulling the protesting girl into a tight embrace.  
  
Slowly, Makoto's sturggles ceased, as her screaming trailed off into sobs. "I just...I just...I'd thought I'd gotten over it...."  
  
"You did," Ann said, gently. "You did, but the Sphinx did something to your soul. You can't be blamed for not throwing a ball because somebody broke you arm."  
  
"B-b-but I..." More sobbing. "I...I took the coward's way o-out-"  
  
"Leaving aside the question of what motivates suicide," a previously unseen Akira began, "That wasn't normal bad memories you were going through. Johanna was being actively destroyed before our very eyes."  
  
"A Persona is the mask you use to interact with the world," Morgana continued, popping out of the bag. "The active assault on a Persona is nothing less than destroying your very identity, piece by piece. In many ways, a Persona is a tame version of the Shadow; if that  _thing_  was killing Johanna, it was killing bits of your id. Including the part that gives you the will to live."  
  
Makoto's mind, while not precisely rational at the moment, was still extremely intuitive and bright. "S-so, y-you're saying that, it..it wasn't really me? Because my d-desire to live had been s-suppressed?"  
  
"Part of the id is Eros, the urge to generate and survive," Morgana continued, calmly. "But the other half is Thanatos, the desire for death. Normally, it's healthy-Thanatos is the part of the id that recognizes that it's not the only thing that exists in the world, and is what allow people to sacrifice themselves for the sake of others. But if Eros is suppressed, and Thanatos is allowed free reign as the only half of the id..."  
  
"T-then all that exists, is the desire for self-destruction."  
  
"See?" Ryuji said, walking out from behind Akira. "I have no idea about the technical terms, but from the sound of it, that really wasn't you holding the gun-that bitch literally knocked most of you out and forced the rest to finish the job."  
  
"Such a technique is not unlike what I suffered under Madarame," the final awake member of the Phantom Thieves finished. "Perhaps more mystical in nature, but you are not at fault for the altering of your thoughts. Only the caricature of Wakaba deserves culpability, and she has been erased from existence."  
  
Slowly, Makoto stopped shaking, though she never let go of Ann.  
  
"C-can I ask you all to sleep here? Or at least M-Morgana?" She inhaled. "I don't want to be alone, and sis isn't coming back until this weekend."  
  
A chorus of relieved assents.

**Author's Note:**

> By the way, Sae isn't abandoning her sis, it's just that Makoto, not being particularly rational right now, has "must protect friends' identities" over "oh god somebody hold me." This means Sae just doesn't know.


End file.
